What accent should I emulate?

[Villa]

Escrito originalmente por Liquinn3

There's a guy that I've spoke to that works at this restaurant about 20 minutes away from here. He speaks so clearly, he's from Argentina. Yet someone I spoke to Monday dislikes the Argentina accent.

I do like the Spain accent very much too. I've not yet spoke to anyone from Mexico. Do you have channels
in Spanish in England/Britain? We have many in California. Channel 22, 34, 46, 52, 54, 56.2, 62, 28.2 28.4
y hay más. Y estos son solo los canales gratis en español. Lo siento mucho por ti amigo mio.
I guess it depends on your preference.

El nuevo Papa habla con acento argentino.
Pues, él es de Argentina.

[Zarnium]

Question: Is there a significant difference in how "j" is pronounced in different accents? My teacher pronounces it pretty strongly, but I saw a video of someone from Mexico say it with much less force, more like an English h.

[Villa]

Escrito originalmente por Zarnium

Question: Is there a significant difference in how "j" is pronounced in different accents? My teacher pronounces it pretty strongly, but I saw a video of someone from Mexico say it with much less force, more like an English h.

Primium one of our forum members just posted a thread in the
General Chat section near the bottom of the forum. It's called
the Pronunciation of the "S" and it's a video of a man from Spain
explaining in Spanish how they pronounce the letter "S" but he also
explains very well how they pronounce the letter "J" and "G". It's very
harsh like rolling the letter "J" and the "G" in the throat. In the U.S. the
native speakers of Spanish from New Mexico speak with this harsh "J".
New Mexico has people that are descendants from the original Spanish
settlers from Spain. New Mexico did not become a state of the U.S. until
1912. My girlfriend from New Mexico spoke with that harsh "J" sound.

[Rusty]

This is apparently the case, yes. I've heard it pronounced both of the ways you have and in between. You can adopt the one you like best, but if you want to fit in, you'll pronounce it the way everyone around you does.
In Central America, it is pronounced forcefully. The 'g', when followed by 'e' or 'i', is also pronounced the same way.

[Zarnium]

Escrito originalmente por Rusty

You can adopt the one you like best, but if you want to fit in, you'll pronounce it the way everyone around you does.

Eh... not quite that simple for me, because there are so few Spanish-speaking people where I live. I'm trying to copy my teacher's east-central Spain accent because I hear it the most often, and because I don't want to spend time thinking about "standard" pronunciations during lessons. If she says "atenthión," I'd rather just copy her instead of mentally replacing the th with an s. Plus, I want to at least attempt to sound like a native speaker of some kind rather than having a generic American accent.

It's not the way the students in the Spanish club talk, though, and I get the feeling they think my way of speaking is a bit ridiculous. They're way more into Latin America. However, I don't want to try to copy the pronunciation of anyone who's not a native speaker. (And really, they're not mean or standoffish or anything. I'm just a little concerned that picking up a funny accent will be a barrier, they all sort of chuckle when I say something like "grathias.")

What exactly are the big no-nos for English speakers as far as pronunciation goes? From observing the other students and comparing them to my teacher, beyond the ceceo difference, they seem to:

-pronounce d's very sharply, without much or any of a the sound.
-pronounce vowels as distinct syllables instead of running them together. (Together with the previous one, they tend to say "ah-dee-os" instead of "athyos" like my teacher says, and like my textbook says to.)
-Pronounce j's exactly like an English h. (A guy from Guatemala, the only native speaker in the group did this too, so I'm thinking that that the strength of the j sound isn't that consistent across accents.)
-Pronounce v's and b's exactly like an English b.

Not that I'm knocking them; their vocabulary and word choice appears to be excellent, and native Spanish-speaking people are obviously able to understand them just fine. I know there's a very wide range of native pronunciation too.

[Villa]

Escrito originalmente por Zarnium

Eh... not quite that simple for me, because there are so few Spanish-speaking people where I live. I'm trying to copy my teacher's east-central Spain accent because I hear it the most often, and because I don't want to spend time thinking about "standard" pronunciations during lessons. If she says "atenthión," I'd rather just copy her instead of mentally replacing the th with an s. Plus, I want to at least attempt to sound like a native speaker of some kind rather than having a generic American accent.

It's not the way the students in the Spanish club talk, though, and I get the feeling they think my way of speaking is a bit ridiculous. They're way more into Latin America. However, I don't want to try to copy the pronunciation of anyone who's not a native speaker. (And really, they're not mean or standoffish or anything. I'm just a little concerned that picking up a funny accent will be a barrier, they all sort of chuckle when I say something like "grathias.")

What exactly are the big no-nos for English speakers as far as pronunciation goes? From observing the other students and comparing them to my teacher, beyond the ceceo difference, they seem to:

-pronounce d's very sharply, without much or any of a the sound.
-pronounce vowels as distinct syllables instead of running them together. (Together with the previous one, they tend to say "ah-dee-os" instead of "athyos" like my teacher says, and like my textbook says to.)
-Pronounce j's exactly like an English h. (A guy from Guatemala, the only native speaker in the group did this too, so I'm thinking that that the strength of the j sound isn't that consistent across accents.)
-Pronounce v's and b's exactly like an English b.

Not that I'm knocking them; their vocabulary and word choice appears to be excellent, and native Spanish-speaking people are obviously able to understand them just fine. I know there's a very wide range of native pronunciation too.

I recorded my Mexican history class when I went to school in Mexico. I then listened to those recordings over and over again for a few years. People would tell me I sounded like a university professor with a perfect educated Mexican accent when I would speak Spanish. I suggest you record your classes and listen to them a lot. Will your teacher let you record her talking? I also can imitate the voices of Spanish speaking actors from the novelas I watch.

[Zarnium]

Escrito originalmente por Villa

Will your teacher let you record her talking? I also can imitate the voices of Spanish speaking actors from the novelas I watch.

Is there a particular model of voice recorder you would reccommend? I'm think of getting this one, because, it's cheap and the quality was acceptable in a test video I saw: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004M8SSZK/?tag=219-20 I'm concerned about how well it will record someone at the distance, but I also sit at the front row and it's a small class.

[Villa]

Escrito originalmente por Zarnium

Is there a particular model of voice recorder you would reccommend? I'm think of getting this one, because, it's cheap and the quality was acceptable in a test video I saw: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004M8SSZK/?tag=219-20 I'm concerned about how well it will record someone at the distance, but I also sit at the front row and it's a small class.

That one sounds good Zarnium. La cosa más importante is to sit in the front of the class cerca de la maestra. Es lo que yo siempre hago. When I recorded my Mexican History class I was right there in front every day. When I recorded my Italian History/Culture class in Italy I was right there in front. I used a barato hand held cassete recorder. Now I have the Samsung Galazy Note II the biggest cell phone there is. It's a phone, a camera, a video camera, a computer and a voice recorder. Don't have to worry about buying a voice recorder jamás/any more. I spent $1,500 on a camera. $1,000 on a video camera and $150 on a audio recorder yet my Galazy Note ll does all that. It also has a 32 GM card.

Since you live in the U.S. go to Staples, Best Buy, Fryes or any of those types of stores to look
at hand held portable voice recorders. I bought one from Staples. BTW, Staples has the best
deals on blank CDs and blank DVDs.

Also get novelas on DVD. You can rewind all you want and listen over and over to them. Use your hand held recorder and record from the novela DVDs. Take notes. Rewind when you don't understand.

On a side note is your Spanish teacher using at all a method called TPR/Total Physical Response?

Samsung Galaxy Note II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Premium]

People from Madrid tend to exagurate the "J" sound. I found an article where the person explains the differences between the accent from Madrid and let's say "standard American accent", even the little ones such as choice of words. I"ll add it later on.

EDIT: http://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diale..._septentrional

It isn't the article I was looking for but this should be useful too.
I'll keep looking for you tomorrow.

[tetsuo]

I need to get used to this accent used by the guy Raúl in this video:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/ep17/
Especially when they are going to the station to drive with el guagua. Some of the letters are very silently spoken and hard to understand when you are not used to it.